Family and friends of Lorraine Good Samsom met on a small stretch of beach in Malibu, CA in early April to hold a wake for Good Samsom, who for many years worked as director of Telefilm Canada in Los Angeles, and then as director of the Vermont International Film Festival in Burlington.

Good Samsom, whose friends toasted her life with champagne while listening to a poetry reading, passed away Dec. 19 after a valiant struggle with cancer. She was 52.

A native of Montreal, she moved to the U.S. in 1978 to work at the Canadian Consulate in New York but transferred to the Canadian Consulate in L.A. the following year, where she helped manage the information and cultural program. She joined the Telefilm office in L.A. in 1980, and became director in 1983. The Canadian industry was very young, and companies like Nelvana, Alliance, and Atlantis were starting to look at opening offices in L.A.

Good Samsom brought Canadians and Americans together for coproduction ventures. She even brought L.A.-based Canadian talent together for the first time with Canadian broadcasters and filmmakers, and she helped establish the very popular annual Oscar party for Canadian Oscar nominees, which was held in conjunction with the Canadian Consulate General and the (then) Canadian Academy of Film and Television. Good also initiated the Canadians in US Talent Directory.

In 1987, Good Samsom left L.A., to join her husband in Vermont.

Lorraine Good Samsom is survived by her mother, Sarah Miller, her husband, Karel Samsom and his children, and her sister, Jean Hill and her children. *